Finally at the eve of going to trial former Lib dem cabinet minister and leadership challenger admits he is guilty of getting his former wife to take his speeding points. Yet another politician shown to be a liar! Not sure I would trust any of them; most appear to be in politics for power, influence or money. Be interesting now to see what sentence he gets and if his ex will also get prosecuted for taking the points
The offence of perverting the course of justice carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, but the average sentence served by those jailed for the offence, according to Ministry of Justice figures from December 2010, is 10 months. Curiously, the average for women, at 12.3 months, is higher than for men (9.6 months). So what's the betting he gets a slap on the wrist, a big fine and an award of costs against him...........Still, at least the creep is out of politics now, but I reckon he will still have influence on the bl**dy windmills policies.... AL
Brilliant news IMHO, they always think they're above the law, but I'm not confident he'll get what he deserves...how about they strap him to one of those great wind turbines for a few days, he's always happy to promote the monstrosities :biggrin:
BBC News - Chris Huhne admits perverting the course of justice This is near the bottom of the above link: He received a severance payment of about £17,000 when he resigned his cabinet position. Downing Street have said it was his decision whether to return the money. Just makes me angry.
Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice can be very serious, such as contriving to get some innocent person sent to prison for a long sentence, or fabricating a libel action so as to extract a huge sum of money from someone who has actually told the truth. Those sorts of cases always get a significant prison sentence e.g. Jonathan Aitken (ex-MP). This case (getting wife to agree to take on a speeding fine and points) is just about as minor an example of that offence as you could find. With no previous offences and a guilty plea, you would expect a sentence right at the lower end of the scale. My guess would be three months prison suspended for a year. Let's see what it turns out to be. I have to say chucking his wife and going for another woman was amazingly stupid, and Huhne has ruined his life and career by doing it.
So how is the millions (no doubt) spent by taxpayers to prosecute a crime which has no victom, happended 10 years ago and doesnt really achive anything a good thing? Load of old tosh. These guys & gals broke the law far more in fraudulent claims for expenses, and THAT is where the effort and cost should have gone to put them behind bars!
Which will probably just cover the fine he gets instead of bang-up because of some spurious mitigating circumstances that will make him a unique case for lenience. You can see it coming from a mile away.
And it wasn't exactly a heartfelt apology he made.I thought he was quite arrogant about "something that happened 10 years ago" almost as if the incident was not connected to him.
I think he's pleaded guilty just to return the favour and drop his ex in it; she's still pleading not guilty I understand! When I asked my wife (joking of course....) if she'd take the bullet for me, she declined! At least we're still together though.
the fact of the matter is and worse than perverting the original offence is that such a high allmighty figure that told us the public how to live our lives was no better than a common criminal!! He knew what two years ago that he had a case to answer, that the evidence against him was going to be unchallengeable.....yet he played the system no doubt trying to get his mates to get it to disappear. In a classic criminal way pleaded not guilty right up until the very end thus getting that hand out, a couple of years of more MP salary and expenses, free trips, jobs for the boys and on and on...........spineless greedy bastard that could of saved all this plus the inevitable time and money of putting the case up to court by having the balls to admit his guilt..............bastid!
The court plans to DNA test him when he returns for sentencing, to ensure that he hasn't sent Nick Clegg in his place....
I agree with the above. He is now trying to act like a reasonable, man of the people, admitting his failings and resigning beacause it's the right thing to do. Wrong - the right thing to do was accept what he did and not to try and weasle out right up to the end, his own people must know about it and should have kicked him out anyway. Poor judgement on the offence, poor judgement on giving his wife the ammo when he left - He was one of those people allowed to make critical judgements for all of us, go figure.
What's the problem? His wife was probably the cause for his speeding so why shouldn't she get the points? /hopes to get enough bricks thrown at him to build a small wall in the garden
I don't think he's in need of an MP's salary to be honest. I know to the everyday bloke £65,738 might seem a lot, but his net worth is over £3.5M and as a non exec board member he might expect that sum for a few days each month. (note I don't make the rules!) He might expect to pick up a few of these as an ex MP or a chairmanship. Any of which would dwarf his salary. So I know where you are coming from Andy, but cause and effect doesn't add up on this one.
i think thee is an element of greed from these bastids. Most of them have second and third jobs like him and have accumulated money as you say ..... The other bit that annoys me is thst there will be a legal team behind him rubbing their hands together as their advise was to stick with it for the long run.........now they are the greedy bast ids.......no doubt in the full knowledge that he was banged to rights as soon as the evidence was presented.
